Trump says he spoke to Xi Jinping and will 'handle' North Korea with additional sanctions

President Donald Trump tweeted that he spoke to China's
president and will handle the North Korea situation in light of
Pyongyang's ICBM test on Tuesday.

Trump usually leans on China to help with North Korea,
but so far nothing has stopped Pyongyang.

To handle North Korea fully, sanctions have proven an
ineffective tool. Trump pairs the sanctions with military
buildups.

President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that he had spoken to
China's president and repeated that he would handle the North
Korea situation.

"Just spoke to President XI JINPING of China concerning the
provocative actions of North Korea. Additional major sanctions
will be imposed on North Korea today. This situation will be
handled!" Trump tweeted.

The tweet echoes Trump's previous statement in which he said very
little about North Korea's recent missile launch, except that it would be taken care
of. He has also repeatedly stressed China's role in
pressuring North Korea, often looking to Xi to act against
Pyongyang after military provocations.

China provides 90% of North Korea's external trade and a huge
portion of its energy imports. Theoretically, China could cut off
exports to North Korea and cause the regime to collapse, but
doing so would run counter to Beijing's foreign
policy goals, as it could lead to a US military presence
right on its border.

But North Korea already exists under the tightest sanctions on
earth. After North Korea's sixth and largest nuclear test in
September, the UN Security Council unanimously passed sanctions
against the country.

North Korea has accelerated its pace of missile testing as it
nears completion of an intercontinental ballistic missile, but
Trump has managed to rally countries against Pyongyang and
isolate the rogue regime.

Paul Bracken, a professor of political science at Yale,
told Business Insider that "the Trump administration has been
reasonably effective" at isolating North Korea by working with US
allies and countries like China. Trump "is
mobilizing opinion in many countries to recognize the North
Korean nuclear threat," Bracken said.

Intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM) Hwasong-14 is pictured during its second
test-fireThomson
Reuters

But North Korea developing and testing long-range missiles
to threaten the US with won't be handled by sanctions alone.
North Korea has been under serious sanctions for over a decade
and has still managed the progress it enjoys today.

Instead, the Trump administration has opted for a strategy
of "maximum pressure," whereby the
US increases military drills and presence in the region while
pushing sanctions and diplomatic solutions to the crisis.